Carolina Oliphant had many suitors for her hand:  she gave a preference to William Murray Nairn, her maternal cousin, who had been Baron Nairn, barring the attainder of the title on account of the Jacobitism of the last Baron.  The marriage was celebrated in June 1806.  At this period, Mr Nairn was Assistant Inspector-General of Barracks in Scotland, and held the rank of major in the army.  By Act of Parliament, on the 17th June 1824, the attainder of the family was removed, the title of Baron being conferred on Major Nairn.  This measure is reported to have been passed on the strong recommendation of George IV.; his Majesty having learned, during his state visit to Scotland in 1822, that the song of “The Attainted Scottish Nobles” was the composition of Lady Nairn.  The song is certainly one of the best apologies for Jacobitism.

On the 9th of July 1830, Lady Nairn was bereaved of her husband, to whom she had proved an affectionate wife.  Her care had for several years been assiduously bestowed on the proper rearing of her only child William, who, being born in 1808, had reached his twenty-second year when he succeeded to the title on the death of his father.  This young nobleman warmly reciprocated his mother’s affectionate devotedness; and, making her the associate of his manhood, proved a source of much comfort to her in her bereavement.  In 1837, he resolved, in her society, to visit the Continent, in the hope of being recruited by change of climate from an attack of influenza caught in the spring of that year.  But the change did not avail; he was seized with a violent cold at Brussels, which, after an illness of six weeks, proved fatal.  He died in that city on the 7th of December 1837.  Deprived both of her husband and her only child, a young nobleman of so much promise, and of singular Christian worth, Lady Nairn, though submitting to the mysterious dispensations with becoming resignation, did not regain her wonted buoyancy of spirit.  Old age was rapidly approaching,—­those years in which the words of the inspired sage, “I have no pleasure in them,” are too frequently called forth by the pressure of human infirmities.  But this amiable lady did not sink under the load of affliction and of years:  she mourned in hope, and wept in faith.  While the afflictions which had mingled with her cup of blessings tended to prevent her lingering too intently on the past,[45] the remembrance of a life devoted to deeds of piety and virtue was a solace greater than any other earthly object could impart, leading her to hail the future with sentiments of joyful anticipation.  During the last years of her life, unfettered by worldly ties, she devoted all her energies to the service of Heaven, and to the advancement of Christian truth.  Her beautiful ode, “Would you be young again?” was composed in 1842, and enclosed in a letter to a friend; it is signally expressive of the pious resignation and Christian hope of the author.